


Tin

by amandaskankovich



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:54:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6878158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaskankovich/pseuds/amandaskankovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where cybernetic limbs are on their way to being more or less commonplace and Elliot gets them as a child after the railing incident. Or Elliot's a cyborg. Because why not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tin

I guess it’s common enough now it’s not really shocking when people hear. I mean it shouldn’t be shocking. There’s like a couple thousand of us who have these implants now. These…modifications. I mean we’re not quite at the prosthetic limb numbers… but I mean they are prosthetic limbs…just inside instead of out. It’s like your Grandma’s plastic hip. Get the fuck over it. My point is: It’s rude to stare.

I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. Unlike the fucked brain chemistry, the bad thoughts. Unlike all that shit. The mods I can mostly actually hide sort of.

I mean. I’ve been told my eyes do a thing.

(I used to wonder if you listened close enough you could hear a click and a whir.)

Blink and you’ll miss it.

When I’m trying to…read you.

They say my eyes change color. I don’t know why. That’s not supposed to be a thing…and I stare in the mirror and I try and see it and sometimes I think maybe no one ever actually said that to me. Maybe I just said that to me. Maybe I just said that to me over and over borrowing strangers and family and friends faces.

That concerned looking guy on the subway whose hand I wanted to touch as much as I wanted him to please just stop staring.

If he’d really been staring.

Hot pin pricks on my face and I just need to breath but I hold my breath until I’m off the train.

And I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until I’m off the train and gasping.

I’d stared at his hands to stare at something and they were nice as far as hands go.

Anyway.

To answer your second stupid question: I am not faster, better, stronger.

I mean I guess I’m better in the sense that h alternative would be my legs and right arm not working.

So check that box.

But stronger? Fuck no.

They tried to be cute about it in the fucking hospital. Because that’s not a dumb fucking thing to do to a traumatized kid who wakes up and he can’t move his legs. Can’t move one of his arms. And oh yeah, your dad’s dead.

And you’re gonna go to a foster home for a little while kiddo as soon as surgery after surgery after surgery. And oh your sister’s already in one. And no you won’t be in the same one as her. (But they wait until after surgery number 3 to tell you this. They let you just assume for two fucking months.)

Anyway.

Stronger.

I guess when they told me I’d be getting them I had these dumbass kid superhero fantasies. I thought I’d have incredible hulk strength. I thought that’s how this worked and the doctors were too nice to say, “No dumbass. The miracle is that you get to move your fucking arm at all.”

But the nurses called me their little superhero. The doctor called me, “Champ.” The end result of noone actually saying that I’d be lucky if after months of physical therapy I was more or less where I’d been before at average scrawny kid strength: I tried to lift my foster father’s car.

Back to the hospital.

Back to therapy.

$1200 out of my mom’s pocket to fix the arm because insurance wasn’t going to cover what I fucked up and insurance had already covered putting them in there to begin with and she only had her works shitty insurance and what the fuck had I been thinking? What?

(The car lifted exactly one inch. My heart was beating so fucking fast.)

My arm was dead for the weeks before the surgery and a few weeks after. I wore a sling and it felt like dead weight because that’s what it was.

Anyway. The answer to your second stupid question. Faster? No.

Stronger? No.

Better?

I think I’m about as good as I was ever going to be.

*

So there’s my arm.

My legs.

The eye. My right eye.

The eye’s…noticeable. The thing that gives me away (or just the thing I think gives me away)

I don’t know if it was doing it before or after I got the upgrade that let me hook it up to wifi.

But anyway. First name. Last name. Social. Blink and I have you right there. Whether you’re on birth control. Who you voted for. Porn preferences. Bank account balance. Debt balance. Student loan payments. Single or in a relationship. Your dog’s heartworm medication. Your mom’s place of employment. Whether you’re in the official cybernetic modification database.

2,000 and counting.

*

Darlene likes to call me the tin man. Her bionic bro.

I guess that’s funny.

*

To answer your first stupid question: yes my heart still beats.

I think.

Kind of just gotta take my word on that.

It’s not like I’ve ever pressed my ears to my own chest. Or gotten a physical in whatever many years.

You can just buy stethoscopes in stores. I know that.

Or I could just put my hand…but how would I know.

How do you know…that you’re not just hearing what you want to hear. Feeling what you want to feel. That everyone’s not just telling you what they have to say.

Just figure your hearts still beating.

Just figure your eyes are the color they are when you look in the mirror and they’re looking back at you.


End file.
